


Youth Knows No Pain

by dabblingDilettante



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen, SDR2 Spoilers, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabblingDilettante/pseuds/dabblingDilettante
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[SDR2 SPOILERS]<br/>Nothing should be treated like this.  Not a code, not a computer, not a person.</p><p>--</p><p>In which Alter Ego is left to save the remnants of despair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Youth Knows No Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Please keep in mind that I use weird pronouns for Alter Ego here! Rather than the typical neutral "they/them/their" or gendered pronouns, I use a specialized "ae/aem/aer" for the AI. Hopefully that doesn't get in the way of reading this fic!

Even with years of research under aer belt, one famous AI still failed to understand the logistics of boats. Even after the Future Foundation mandated information had been uploaded to Alter Ego, there was still a huge amount of the smallest details ae couldn't explain or understand.

Not even Naegi had understood aer question, as he responded with a messy but earnest attempt at mimicking the way boats would rock and skid over waves by tripping down the stairs. His wail was much shorter than the one that followed it, a shriek that the AI could understand with the much more comfortable systems of microphones the Foundation had allowed ae to carefully connect to. Ae could see the sharp lines of pitch in the corner of aer understanding, and while ae was still getting used to sound as yet another regular input, Alter Ego had a 80% probability that aer calculation of exactly who Naegi had fallen on was...

“Ah! Fukawa! I-I'm so sorry, I-”

While Naegi's flustered attempts to sooth the writer's red face managed to interrupt aer calculation, it couldn't stop Fukawa's rather loud response to the fact that someone had just fallen on her.

Her shrieks in response went up and down in volume like a sound that Alter Ego had to look to find something even slightly comparable. Broken glass was similar, but only in how it sharply peaked and fell into small waves of noise as quickly as it started and began. It was impossible to understand with such little practice, but still absolutely fascinating. Fukawa was by far one of aer favorite people to listen to, even if she seemed ill at ease around aem...

Naegi backed up the stairs, tripping onto his back sometimes, as he tried to talk kindly over her anxious yelling, but the two humans ended up in the room the boy had started in the first place before they knew it.

Alter Ego had dozens of small eyes all over the room, so ae enjoyed a panoramic view of the slight figure of Touko Fukawa, flailing her braids around as though they were whips. In spite of the presumably violent motions (which Alter Ego made a small side note to make sure to study more violent human body language in the future with one of aer many databanks), she wasn't even attempting to hit Naegi. Better yet, he seemed all to aware of that. AE had to look up to the friend, friend not master. His abilities to analyze such situations on the fly were inpeccable. His hand moved close enough to the writer that he was finally lightly smacked by one of her braids, causing her to practically spin away in shock.

“So! Fukawa!” Naegi let the words pop out of his mouth before Fukawa had a chance to allow the conflicted look on her face to transform into equivalent words. “Why were you coming up?”

The fortunate student's voice was always readable for AE, even if the intonation to his words was not. His eyes were always wide open and he was always ready to pull up a smile, just like aer late master. Naegi could convince anyone to reach out to him, and Alter Ego processed Fukawa's tiny restless steps as a calming action. Ae speculated it was potentially akin to one of the fans on the computers ae kept a benevolent and figurative eye on.

As she sniffed, she managed to force out, “Of course _you'd_ get us into this trouble again.”

“What do you mean?” In spite of his question, she just sobbed in response, and pointed back down the stairs.

Alter Ego could see the warm color in Naegi's face fade by at least 10%. With a quick flip of aer systems, ae started to switch through the various cameras throughout the docked boat. Emptiness in one hall, Togami's quick pace down another. Ae checked the cabins that the Hope's Peak survivors had been only recently been moved to for transport to a new area, and found nothing out of place. They were strangely quiet and twitchy, but after the horrors they may have seen...

Naegi had once told Alter Ego that he shuddered to think what they may have gone through.

It was only a few more clicks to find Hagakure, waving his hands in the air as he shouted into a phone. Curious, when he was normally blowing off most of the Future Foundation's work. Another allowed ae to discover Asahina standing on the dock, removing the mostly symbolic ropes that tied the boat to the main dock. Alter Ego checked aer ship logs, picking up the irregularity in time frame and these operations aer friends were pressing.

A logical leap made ae take the last look to the captain's cabin, only to find Kirigiri frantically typing into a smart phone. Outside of aer network, and too much probability for just that reason.

That process only took the AI barely a thought, barely a speck of time, to where Naegi hadn't even moved to run out of the room. But ae knew he would be running, knew ae had to get up to date on what the Future Foundation had managed to hide from even aem for this long.

This percentage of processing to Naegi's run through the halls, unlocking doors just long enough for him to run through them, a small percentage to a timer of how long it would take Asahina to prepare the ship for departure, and the most spread across the long chain of walls that the Future Foundation had set up against hackers. With exuberance most decidedly passed on from aer master, ae could tell that it wasn't _really_ for hackers – it was for aem.

Chihiro Fujisaki was no Super High School Level Hacker per say, but that didn't mean the AI aemself was lacking in such a department, as the Foundation seemed to expect. While ae did adopt aer master's face, the two had grown to be quite different in the two years since the 78th Class's game of murder and mystery. It took Alter Ego fourty-eight seconds to break through and spill the contents across the ship's computer systems. Just in time for Naegi to burst into the captain's cabin with panting breath.

Dread wasn't exactly programmed into Alter Ego's systems, but that was the only word in the lengthy lexicon ae had as ae heard and saw the secret that the Future Foundation had found.

“We're harboring the remnants of despair,” Kyouko Kirigiri said in a simple, steeled sentence.

–

Alter Ego had no cameras on the outside of the boat ae were taking temporary vestige in, but Naegi came to tell aem the sight of seeing Asahina shrug as seven agents came out to try to intercept the boat, already too far away to take real action. Whether it was from the stress of the Foundation's decision, or the fear of leaving Asahina behind at the base, Alter Ego was able to discern that the fortunate boy's laugh was by no means genuine.

The only one on Naegi's side was Hagakure.

“Alter Ego and Asahina are supporting this too, we can't let the Future Foundation just...just...”

Kirigiri interrupted Naegi's stuttering with ease. “Execute those who caused this in the first place?”

He let his shoulders fall slack, and Alter Ego wanted to jump out of aer monitor and give Kirigiri a strong talking to. As is, ae weren't supposed to be looking in on this fight. Ae were lucky that Naegi had set up an extra camera hidden by the statuette of Sakura Oogami in the corner of the room. Through the tiny lens, they could record Kirigiri's gloved hand tapping the side of her folded arm. Impatient, or expecting, or maybe just another physical tic.

Ae had never been ale to collect much data on Kirigiri. Something about the detective made her seem to want to avoid cameras and documentation. Even the Future Foundation hadn't been able to make her crack about the scars on her hands.

Only aer...curiosity...when working to reinstate Kirigiri's memories had allowed Alter Ego to delve deep into the overwhelming data of memory to discover the truth of the matter. Nothing to do with the despair that had rocked their school of course, so no one else's business, of course. Most decidedly not the Future Foundation's.

Naegi's voice spiked through the staticky silence the AI was left in, as he finally said, “We can't just let them kill people who were once just like us, Kirigiri.”

She swung away from him, hair flaring out behind her. “Exactly. _Once_ like us.”

Alter Ego observed Naegi's shoulders droop, calculated the tinny click of Kirigiri's heels against the floor, and thought about Fujisaki. The answer here was one of the simplest ae had ever encountered.

“Naegi. What did you do?”

The boy's shoulders lifted up again. Ae could barely make out the shift through the grainy camera ae'd been left, hard to separate the black suit from the dark surroundings, so ae were grateful that Naegi's words were safe to take at face value.

“N...nothing, what are you talking about?”

Kirigiri's sigh was hard to make out. “So. Where is it. You let that watch us, didn't you.”

Naegi didn't answer, which was likely the condition set that made Kirigiri turn to the computer at the desk and jam her finger aganinst the power button.

“Alter Ego, I suggest you not stand in my way on this.”

The web cam on the computer clicked into working order and ae allowed aer worried sprite to fade into sight on the monitor.

“I'm afraid that I really can't do that!' ae said, chipper and soft and excited to finally have a voice in this debacle. A voice, ae hoped, aer master would agree with from beyond the grave.

'I see.” Kirigiri sat down in a chair and looked directly into the webcam. As usual, she never looked directly at Alter Ego it seemed. “If I were to...perhaps threaten you, would that be easiest?”

The AI had their avatar blink in response, keeping wide, attentive eyes directly on Kirigiri without a word. She let out a breathy chuckle.

“I do suppose that such lacking data wasn't enough to make you respond.” She pressed a finger to her cheek in thought. “I could remind you that you only exist on these networks because of the Foundation requiring you on their side. Or perhaps...” She smiled a little. “I could remind you that your late master died because of the despair that infected our world. I would have thought that simple idea would have been enough for you to accept the proper decision here.” Kirigiri leaned against her fist. “Though I also know that perhaps it is a flaw in your system. Despair is not something you would truly understand.”

“Kirigiri!”

She didn't even twitch in response to Naegi's sudden shout, and he faltered a moment at that, before giving his head a shake. “Kirigiri, you can't say that. Of course Alter Ego knows...”

“And how do you know that, Naegi? And why do you want to place the opinion of some lines of data over your friends' lives?”

The detective was always to the point, but Alter Ego could distinguish an unusual harshness in her questions. To speak in such a way to even Naegi was...unheard of, ae decided, spinning through dozens of recorded conversations, overlaying frequencies and volumes to make sure. Going against a person like Kirigiri was terrifying, especially as someone who she didn't even see as a real person, but ae made the decision ae knew had to be made.

“Are you really that bitter about Enoshima?”

That name was supposed to be forbidden, but given the circumstances, the AI felt such an action was not against aer programming. Artificial intelligence, made consciousness, did not mean ae were unlearning, and that mantra gave aem the confidence against Kirigiri grinding her teeth in her very customary quiet fury.

Alter Ego kept the carefully smiling avatar on the screen, in spite of the percentage of how likely ae were to lose against Kirigiri slowly ticking upwards as she rolled in her chair closer to the computer, positioning her fingers over the keyboard as though she was back in Kibougamine's trial room, ready to destroy any possible defense ae could have. The window of changing anything was closing.

“Enoshima tricked you all and put you in that position.” Aer voice came out, a little staticky from the monitor, but still clear. “But what if she also did that to these people who are left?”

Naegi nodded in the background, his ahoge bobbling on his head from the force of the motion. “Alter Ego is right, Kirigiri! So please, listen to me, I think I have a plan.”

She didn't look back at him. Instead, she stared at her keyboard and typed in the words, “They gave into despair. They ripped apart the world. Enoshima did not do any of this on her own.” She left her hands over the keyboard, waiting for a response, before finally starting, “If we executed them, that would -”

Her stream of words cut off and her eyes flashed up towards the computer.

“I'm sorry I cut your input off there, Kirigiri.” Alter Ego adopted aer master's thoughtful expression. “But...I don't think that would bring back your friends or father.”

Even Naegi's eyes widened in the screen's direction at those words.

“And what,” Kirigiri spat out, quite literally, “Does my _father_ have to do with _any_ of this?”

“Well...I think that if you're still so upset about him in all of this...that he must have to do something with all of this, at least to you!”

“I suggest you stick to computers and not stick your business into my affairs, Fujisaki!”

The room fell into silence with that name and the detective realized her mistake too late. Her eyes closed as she smoothly rolled her chair back and away from the computer. To the side, Naegi slowly came over and wiped the bits of saliva from Alter Ego's webcam. He smiled carefully, just where ae could see, and brushed his fingers over the keyboard. Ae unlocked the function, and he almost unmovingly typed in a single word. “Thanks.” It was a win.

With that, he turned to Kirigiri, breaking the silence with, “Does Alter Ego remind you of our dead friends that much?”

She pressed a hand over her eyes. “...it isn't supposed to be the topic of discussion here.” In spite of that, she stood up, and looked straight at Naegi. “But I suppose I made things that way myself.” Her eyes ran across the room until she settled her eyes on Alter Ego. “...you caught onto my bias too well.” A small smile appeared on her face as she said, “Perhaps you're a bit better at understanding people than I thought. Fujisaki...was always better with reading computers.”

Surprisingly, her chuckle was much softer than Alter Ego had ever heard it directed aer way. “Maybe I could make a detective out of you too.”

She folded her arms. “If I promise to hear Naegi out, will you unlock this door?”

Alter Ego chirped in response, “There's nowhere to escape on this boat, so of course!”

Despite Kirigiri's sudden complexion change, she still didn't run out of the room when she heard the door unlock. She nodded at Naegi and he started telling her the reason for their sudden unmandated trip to one island paradise of Jabberwock Island and the plan for their special guests against the Future Foundation...

–

Fukawa was the hardest to convince. Naegi told Alter Ego that it was probably because she couldn't forgive herself for all the crimes she had been forced to be involved in. But she had come around eventually, with the precision of Kirigiri, the terseness of Togami, and the kindness of Naegi. Togami had been far easier to convince, if only because he could never stand against the tag team of the Naegi and Kirigiri together.

But that was only one of the major walls in terms of saving those remnants of despair, Alter Ego found, as Naegi stood before aem.

“So what I'm saying is that...we originally planned to just go through the data to form their avatars on site. But...because the Future Foundation will find out where we're going...we need immediate data. Immediate proof.”

While ae left up a sprite of shock on the screen, ae were running through probabilities, analyzing, trying to understand what Naegi said because ae were _surely_ reading him wrong, he couldn't be asking aem to do something that had originally taken months for just six people, to -

“I'm sorry, but I need you to pull together the data for their avatars here on the boat.”

“How long do I have?”

Alter Ego couldn't stammer or pause like the humans around aem could, but ae still sometimes wanted there to be a way that ae could convey aer absolute shock at the impossibility of what Naegi wanted.

“10 days.”

There was no way. 15 people, who would probably fight the escort to the small processing pod they had in the engine room, 15 people, who had been despair for who knew how long, _15 people_.

“Only you can save them at this point, Alter Ego,” Naegi said so quietly ae could barely read what he had said. “I wish I could do something more but...” He typed in the last words.

_I know you can do it._

A human could know a thing, but be entirely wrong, Alter Ego knew for a fact. A human could 'know' that someone was alive when they were truly dead. A human could 'know' that their milk was whole when it was actually 2%. And a human could 'know' that they would lose even when two years later, they still hadn't lost.

Two years later, and this six plus one were still here.

“Of course I can!”

Alter Ego didn't mention the blinking red percentage behind aer eyes. Ae weren't a human. But ae knew that ae had gained far more than just lines of numbers and code over the years of aer life.

Naegi grinned so widely, he looked like he would split his entire face open. “Thank you so much, Alter Ego.”

Into the keyboard, he typed one last phrase. _Thank you for being our friend_.

They had 10 days and 15 people to save. Naegi ran out of the room with an appropriate urgency as Alter Ego started calibrations for the avatar creation program. They weren't going to lose.

–

5 days passed. The first person was a strange man with surprisingly well kept bright pink hair, contrasting with his blood stained jumpsuit that he refused to remove even after a week at the Foundation headquarters. Naegi and Hagakure removed the steel braces around his arms and legs after he went under in the pod, as Alter Ego booted up aer program. Minds were tricky things, and delving into aer friends' minds to retrieve the memories that Junko had hidden (and in some cases ripped apart with skill and viciousness) had been a difficult task. However, ae found that...this was an entirely different sort of task.

Taking memories and creating a version of this person, apparently named “Kazuichi Souda,” before he had stepped into Kibougamine's halls was far easier than ae had ever thought possible. Forming an image of a slightly shorter teen with apparently the exact same strange taste in fashion was like shaving the wool off a sheep. Memories of an angry father and distaste at most of the people around him and a few too many of cars flooded into the form of readable data, all powered by his brain and body. It seemed powerful, but that data was only usable in the New World Program, and required his body and brain as a backup power system for his avatar inside. Still...it was a chance that not many would ever have.

Kirigiri stared at the completed avatar preview with guarded confusion. “Are you sure this is all correct?” she asked.

Alter Ego bounced aer sprite around, excited and proud. “Yes! I am precisely positive!”

A moment passed before she said, “Even the teeth?”

The sprite tilted over in confusion. “What's wrong with them?”

“...I had assumed that his teeth were something he had filed in his despair, or something along those lines. I was incorrect?”

Alter Ego kept aer sprite rolling around in a circle. “He always had his teeth that way, I'm really sure!” Ae stopped at about 8'o clock on aer revolving. “Like...Hagakure always had his strange hair, right? People have really unique fashion senses sometimes!”

With how cheerily ae beamed up at Kirigiri, she could only push out a stilted, “Unique...that's one way to describe it, I suppose.”

A person in a long green coat who gave a friendly refusal to the removal of the hand taped to their arm came in next. In spite of that only seven hour long first retrieval, they took an entire day of everyone's time for Alter Ego to put together a reasonable facsimile of whoever they were before entering Kibougamine. Their mind was filled with backwards thoughts, lies and truths that even they couldn't tell between anymore, and an all too knowing presence lingering upon every past memory.

However, once Alter Ego landed on the strange person's talent, everything else came behind that single fact like all strung on a single line. Dead parents, good luck, bad events, money and illness, a strange combination that was all tinted with the thought, “Thank you for reminding me of that.” Ae were not very in tune with many of the intonations of humans, but ae realized as ae tried to separate despair from pre-despair, that the thought had been very sarcastic.

Nagito Komaeda was like a sickly strange combination of Kirigiri's intelligence and quickness, Naegi's luck and good nature, and Togami's spite and rudeness, even before being wrapped up in despair. Ae gladly ignored all of their memories after coming to Kibougamine as ae wrapped up a slightly artifacted, but still complete, avatar of the student. Alter Ego had to ring Fukawa to bring the next person, the only person up at such a horrendous time of night, quietly apologizing the whole time she brought the next guest to try to calm her from her shaking.

In spite of how long Komaeda took to pull together, the next few were much easier. One girl who refused to move her camera from her face to let them see the scars behind who was easy to separate all the pictures of blood and fear from the pre-Kibougamine snapshots of calm places and smiling groups in spite of the inadequacy that haunted her youth. One who Alter Ego refused to refer to as anything but a dark lord, easy to separate from the death and poisoning and plague by animals that supplemented his days as Despair. A far cry from his days that ae found were spent on farms, with animals, a knowing hand aware of the need for death, but always spent with kindness.

When Alter Ego saw found the bits and pieces of his anxiety around humans, ae felt a strong connection. Aer master would have liked him. The him that existed before Enoshima entered his life.

One of the only cases of people there that truly surprised the AI was the presence of Novoselic Princess, Sonia Nevermind. Branded a war criminal across the world, she had sacrificed her own parents to Enoshima. Her country had been a kind and independent place to her as she grew up, but apparently the news that her parents hadn't been able to keep out invading neighbors had changed something about her. Her beautiful face was branded on so many walls across Asia and Europe and even across the oceans themselves. The fact that she had stayed alive all this time, in spite of how many people howled for her blood, was...to the AI, amazing. While even Kirigiri kept a hand on her gun the entire time the princess was under, the fact that Nevermind was there gave Alter Ego the hope ae could finish on time.

Her memories were clean and organized, as though she kept a regular house keeping on all of them, as though the Sonia from before coming to Japan was an antiquity to be looked upon. Against all seeming sense of others Alter Ego had studied the memories of, associations of tanks and bombs came up alongside those of smiling in cold snow with warm fire-roasted foods in tow. Japan was impossibly interconnected with a multitude of dramas that even Alter Ego was barely aware of, even with aer wide research of media to try to understand people to a greater degree.

In her memories, in spite of guns and bodies surrounding her, she wore a clean smile and a polite attitude, that had apparently never changed from her life before Kibougamine. All of her knowledge about Japanese society being so heavily influenced by fiction, and all of her understanding of language made ae excited to pull together the 15 year old Sonia Nevermind. Not because of the Program, not to fight the Future Foundation, but because in a single moment, Alter Ego had decided that ae would talk to her some day. She was complete and structured and more than a little similar, ae decided, to the AI aemself.

Such a meeting had to wait though, as Kirigiri tapped a heel on the ground, a motion that she had many times informed Alter Ego was meant to show just how impatient she was. The detective was always matter of a fact to aem, but...the thanks she gave upon pulling Nevermind out of the pod was far less sharp in sound than any she had given aem before.

One man could barely even be seen past the many mechanical accouterments that had apparently been attached to him during his period of despair.  The pod could barely contain him, but the force of the five together made it work.  Even after the destructive elements had been removed, he was still more machine than human. It seemed impossible to Alter Ego at the time that ae would be able to find the person beneath all of that again, but something as simple as the memory of a hearty laugh was able to drag multitudes of thoughts to the surface. A bad heart, a beautiful career of managing, and a humanity that far defied the strange mechanical body he now wore.

Hagakure had to carry in the blond in traditional Japanese wear, her legs apparently so damaged that she couldn't walk down the stairs to the processing room. In spite of that, Alter Ego found she had once been a dancer, and quietly marveled at how much both despair and time were able to change her appearance. Saionji was a name familiar to the AI's data banks, though ae had never known the dark past the family apparently held beyond its long history of tradition and ceremony in Japan. A girl so distrusting, ae was so sure it had to have been the despair that made her that way. The memory of a lost father proved otherwise.

Another had to be held down by a woman who kept the carefully embroided bag on her back in spite of the shinai being removed. He wouldn't lay down unless she was in the room as well, and Naegi convinced Fukawa that he felt the silver-haired woman wouldn't do anything. Alter Ego was surpised to find that the two had been together their entire lives and set a note to analyze the possibility of that causing issues in the program itself. There were never any adoptions mentioned from the Kuzuryuu family itself, but ae had a grim understanding of just how many undocumented activities such a family was likely to have. Pekoyama seemed all too aware herself, in far too many of her memories, all unfortuntely and heavily attached to that single name and the phrase “young master.”

A skeletally thin woman seemed to float as though she was on strings to the pod, and it was a struggle for Alter Ego to pull out all of her life before Kibougamine, everything even before filled with the smell of blood, smoke, and starvation. It was similar for another girl, giggling and shaking even when asleep in the pod. Her life had been filled with death and illness and assault even before coming to the school, and Alter Ego was increasingly sure that saving the lives of these 15 was the right choice.

However, when it came to the last two, that choice of “saving lives” proved to be the hardest.

One gave a different name every time they were asked. A different tone, a different pitch, different dialects of even several languages. The one thing they outright refused was allowing anyone to remove the bag from their head. Their memories shone through easily, but where they fit in, at what times...not even Alter Ego could puzzle out. The best ae could understand was that this person was invited to Kibougamine as an Imposter, after narrowing down the possibilities of the old rosters that ae still had even after the big despair shutdown.

Two days passed, and Togami barged in impatiently to Alter Ego sending smoke out of aer sprite's ears in frustration.

“I didn't agree to Naegi's foolish plan to see you completely fail in executing it.”

Ae sank down the screen, only aer sprite's eyes staying in place, but he didn't move from his typical stance, that Naegi said was supposed to be “haughty.”

“I'm waiting,” he said only ten seconds later.

Ae spun back up on the screen and explained, “I can't find a way to make this person's avatar, I'm afraid! They don't have any basis for that moment in their life...”

The heir rolled his eyes. “And what.” He paused and Alter Ego knew his game. Dramatic pauses, no matter what the situation. “Does that mean?”

“They're an imposter! But they didn't have anything to copy when they came to Kibougamine.”

Togami chuckled and responded, “And I had assumed this was an actual problem.  Simple.  Just have them copy me.”

In spite of how...unorthodox that plan seemed, Togami explained that he was clearly the best candidate of the six for such a thing. Maybe if Naegi had been up at the time, he could have figured out something better...with only one day left, there was no time to argue or plan. The last person had to be processed.

Alter Ego refused to let even one of them fall through the cracks at this point. Not after all of their lives before entering the school. Ae wanted to show Kirigiri to prove how worthwhile this was, show Naegi to show him how right he had been, but there was no real reason if the 15 didn't get put into the program.

The last person came on with Kirigiri, in a simple suit, the longest hair Alter Ego had ever recorded before, bright red eyes, and the easiest sounding voice ae had ever processed. Their language was strange, from the little they said to Kirigiri's questionnaire. Like the others, the figure said very little, admitted to nothing. However, they laid down in the pod and hooked themself up entirely on their own, and put up a hand every time the detective went to touch them.

She did finally give a sluggish nod, as everyone knew there was no point in wasting all of their limited time at this point.

Alter Ego opened a new file and started analyzing for the last time.

–

This mind was strange, even to Alter Ego. Little could seem unique or out of place to an intelligence like aem, but from the moment ae looked at this person's mind, everything was strange. Despair was powerful, but this...

“You will not find anything here.”

The phrase floated over, only understandable due to the code that the AI was converting everything through. It was far different from the fourteen before. It was more akin to...a sickness. A virus. Something made.

“His memories are not here.”

That line seemed to soak into a memory lined with blood and torture. Alter Ego tried to pick up that line of blood, but it only led to...more blood. And more blood. And more. Blood on hands, blood on heads, walls, cars, legs. And then it stopped. The details seemed to gain more static as ae tried to read them, until everything just cut out.

“I will not take part in this.”

Lines and lines and lines and lines and lines and lines.

That single thought over and over.

For the first time since the quick crunch of a small laptop two years ago, Alter Ego felt true surprise. This consciousness. It was just like aem. Only something like aem could shut such a skilled AI as aemself out so easily, at the very least. There was no protocol for this in any of aer systems, any of the logs and data of years of learning, that could explain this presence.

It was almost as though someone had put in an artificial backup for when they slept into their mind, but...that was impossible for a human to do.

This was only possible if ae could break past those defenses.

The mind was like the largest jigsaw puzzle. Puzzles were nothing for an AI like aem, merely piece out the edges of everything and put it all together from there. But this was like a puzzle where all the pieces were the same perfect square, with pieces that constantly melted into pixelly images that no analysis could make out.

It was both infuriating and sad.

The more Alter Ego looked over everything, the more it seemed like a broken code of some great machine or process. Chains of emotion and being broken and all channeled towards only one purpose, but whatever that process, purpose, was...ae couldn't find it. Everything fit together like a mobius strip without a single starting point. It was everything all at once, in spite of the bits and pieces that hung off and made every other process break down.

Ae could practically hear aer master's old rants about people not taking care of their code, not treating it like something that needs to have precision and thought, leaving stray bits in because that was what was easiest...ignoring it out of one's own selfishness. Alter Ego felt as though ae felt some of Fujisaki's anger in that moment, even the smallest bit. Nothing should be treated like this. Not a code, not a computer, not a person.

“Why would you do this,” ae piped out through aer speakers, at the lowest volume to avoid waking the dozing Kirigiri.

Sending those words out and back into aer processing didn't find any answers, but in the quiet lurching of the boat, it was almost like a soliloquy for a person almost impossibly shattered beyond repair.

And that was enough to help Alter Ego take desperate measures.

If this person's mind was like aem, then it could have a system refresh, a starting point of some sort somewhere in the code, as broken and dillapidated as the entire thing was. Ae didn't have to treat this like one of the many minds ae had analyzed, not when the entire thing was almost borderline manufactured. If it was made, then the creators would have made it strong enough to withstand a lot more than a normal brain could take.

Questions, starting point, potential ideas ran through Alter Ego's processing. Why did they come to Kibougamine, when were they born, favorite food, favorite place, favorite sound, even a single sound of their name. Talent soaked across as an answer to every question. Talent and tired boredom, but talent was one more thing than ae had in the moment before. It was something to focus on.

So with that, ae copied a section of the translated code, and took a gamble.

A simple command and all mentions of talent were deleted. Unexpectedly, that was _everything_ of that small section of code. Sprawling over the mind again, ae saw again and again, just how deeply ingrained _talent_ was to every part of this sordid being.

Lines and lines and lines, all overwritten with talent, some made and others converted. Every moment Alter Ego thought ae understood, another discovery appeared, and there was almost an air of disappointment with each new find.

“This is all you can do?”

“The child of the Programmer of Kibougamine?”

“The probability you know more than this is high.”

“Are you going to fail?”

“Boring..."

The words were calculated at specific points in the code, as though they had known that Alter Ego would struggle, as though they had predicted all of this. The thought of losing in code to a human was...unthinkable! Ae revved the fans on the computers around aem in irritation. Time was running out and this person was just mocking aem, knowing...

Yet there, still hanging over aer memory banks, were Naegi's last real words to aem, ten days ago. Right...it wasn't about having to do this. It was that ae could do this. Without a doubt. One person and 13 hours, ae could knock this out of the park.

“Then do it.”

A determined AI could do a lot. Ae had to shove aside code, painfully deide to delete some with the hope that none of it would be absolutely important, dig and push and _fight_ to find even the smallest speck. Underneath everything, barely noticeable under crowds of talent and boredom and nothingness, was a single date.

January 1st.

“Happy New Year, Hinata!”

The quiet thought of _'you could wish me a happy birthday'_ floated along that single phrase.

 _Was this really my birthday? Well...it's not as though I've done much to deserve this,_ followed quietly behind.   _Maybe if I had...that._

Alter Ego had to dive in to keep a hold on it, even with the pressure of the despair mind – apparently named “Hinata” – pressing down on all sides. Ae almost went to pull it out, but nothing was connected. This small memory was the only bit of the pre-Kibougamine Hinata ae could see, and pulling it out now...it was impossible to tell what could happen.

Instead, ae pressed in farther, pressed aemself into a mind that was far more tumultuous than ae could have figured from the calm exterior. Pressure, more pressure, until finally...something more.

A child in a quiet house, fidgeting in the all consuming silence. A fax machine beeps in the distance. In spite of that, the person the AI assumes to be Hinata doesn't move. His hair is long, though not as long as his current body's length. He shoves the girl's uniform off his bed, worn and covered in a bit of dirt, and crawls under the covers.

Pulling gently, as though the memory could dissolve into nothingness in spite of how impossible that was, ae found a connection.

With the beep of the fax machine came another day. Here, his hair is shorter. Sheared off surprisingly short, uneven and awkward, and sticking up in a dozen directions. On the paper in his hands is a letter. The words are hard to make out, but the intonation is clear.

Disappointment. Rule breaking. A long talk. Our reputation. His hands sweat and his shoulders shake. Tears fall onto the paper and the fresh ink begins to run.

With that, Alter Ego found more and more. One of a still young Hinata, high voiced and far different in tone and language from his current self.

“I'll be better! So don't come back right now.” His voice, frantic.   _  
_

“Hinata, don't speak that way to your father.”

The voice on the other end had no tone, no voice, but ae could see it clearly in Hinata's memory regardless.

“I...” A bite of the lip. Fingers pulling down on a skirt he hadn't been able to change out of yet. “Yes sir. I'm sorry.” Shame shaded the memory with a shaky unreliability.   _Maybe if I had 'that'..._

Slowly, pressured and painful, memories led to more, and Alter Ego managed to finally make out enough lines to find a full name.

“Hinata Hajime?”

_I've had that name since I was born._

_I'm definitely..._

Images of him standing before a school clicked across the processing screen before aem, distorted and wrong, covered in left overs and parts of far too many other memories. It was as though all the code that made up this version of the child had been pressured together for so long that it no longer had any real heads or tails left. A coin smashed flat onto the ground, shredded, and melted into scrap metal for someone's new project.

The only treatment comparable to these memories Alter Ego could think of was the shredding that Enoshima had run through Kirigiri's memory with. This was, without a sliver of doubt, entirely purposeful destruction.

“I'm not much one for introductions...but...I may as well. My name is –”

Overlayed order and near impossible to tell from one another. Ae realized that was likely the reason it was so hard to determine his name in the first place.

With the names were entry forms for different schools. Six different middle schools, all sent to him through a fax machine from family, all marked with the same information, sans address.

Given name: Hinata

Schools from all over Japan, always major cities, and ae found that the address listed was always another apartment building, in spite of how the first found memories had been indisputably in an actual house.

Files of school work, and only one small entrance form for only one high school. Kibougamine.

“I don't need to fill out application forms for anywhere else.” His voice is proud for once.

In spite of that pride, echoes of other voices permeate the memory. ' _Must be nice to be rich.' 'Must be nice to have such loving parents.' 'Must be nice to make yourself feel better than us.' 'Must be nice to feel better for not having –'_

The phrase faded into another memory, but they didn't feel disconnected. The AI did a quick scan, knew ae had to try to find another connection, because that cut off word had to be important. Had to lead to something more tangible than a quiet Hinata sitting on the last day of middle school, quietly muttering to himself, “I have to absolve myself. I want to have pride in myself. I want to go home...”

But the thought of home led to...

A child walking home in an elementary school uniform, only to be caught and reprimanded by a patrolling teacher. “You can't skip the awards ceremonies just because you aren't getting anything!” His eyes are cast down at the street in silence. “Why don't you use this to inspire yourself to do better, Hajime? If your father's talks aren't helping...” _Talks?_ The thought floated across the memory. _If you want to call that a talk._

The same child limping with a skateboard in hand down a street, focused only on the library at the end. He's turned away, told that his parents called and said he wasn't allowed in until he focused more on his academic studies than the foolish, useless pursuit of something he would most certainly would never have. “Go back home.” Instead, he walks to the playground and sits under a slide until dark, pulling a dark green hat over his head. On it is an iron on insignia of one Kibougamine.

That child nervously standing at the door to yet another club, hearing too many voices inside, quickly turning away before he makes himself sick with anxiety and fear. Running out of the school earlier than everyone else to sit at the small confectionary shop an extra three blocks out of the way to a so-called home. The pound of the mochi-making is calming and one of the only things to settle his anxious mind. Thoughts of loneliness, depression, worthlessness...fade away for the moment.

There, the child staying out late with friends. “I can pay.” “It's alright, I don't want anything to eat.” “I...um. Would you like this manga I picked up?” Late with friends who accept what he offers, albeit with confusion, and sometimes laughter. “What a suck up!” one says, cheerfully mussing his hair up. _I'm not trying to...I'd kind of prefer if you didn't touch me like that._ The words stay stuck in his mouth. He learned to not speak too freely, after all. Only consequences laid there. He stays late with friends who laugh when he says he needs to go home to study, and doesn't have to worry about it again when he's finally grounded.

Here, too many apartments filled with boxes left unpacked, whether from no time or the fear of the memories and disappointments that lay inside. He opens one, finds a small flute sent to him from one of his parents' business trips, and blows into it. Dust puffs out, and the sound makes him shudder and drop the instrument on the ground. It breaks into three neat component pieces. _For the best,_ he thinks as he throws it away. _Probably_.

Alter Ego glanced over all the coding and felt like a strange voyeur, looking upon all his memories like this, but there was no choice. Everything was fragmented and wrong, pieces shaved off and placed in awkward spaces out of just more convenience. No care or thought put into the human once known as Hajime Hinata.

There was one last link to the thought of home and ae looked at it as ae imagined a person would pick up a baby bird.

_Ever since I was young, I've looked up to Kibougamine as...being really special._

The burst of memory that followed that almost burned out the processing on Alter Ego's computers. Ae frantically made sure the fans were running as dozens, hundreds, thousands of thoughts about Kibougamine poured out, facts and dreams and wants and a singular aim.

“There's one sole reason for why I came to Kibougamine....and that is that I truly admire this school.”

 _My beloved Kibougamine_.

_...that's a little much, isn't it._

A child standing alone at the front of a class with clenched fists, glaring at someone who snickered during his presentation on the school of his dreams. Taken aside by a teacher for throwing a dry erase marker at the offender's head, taken aside by the offender and her friends after class, cat-calling until the two of them are pulling at hair and ties. Pulled apart and sent home to the rare dreaded chance of briefly present parents.

Another memory, and he stands, waiting for a print out a black and white floorplan of Kibougamine's various buildings, even the faculty only ones. An unbidden pride springs up at having them in hand, despite how hard it broke every rule he held dear to his heart. They go in a carefully kept scrapbook, kept under his pillow for the times without sleep or comfort.

Other memories float up, one of chopping off shoulder length hair while eyeing a picture of Jin Kirigiri. Another memory of having to be carried out of Kibougamine at 13, crying over having to leave after a field trip. No one else knew the halls as well as he did, studied for months under the dying bulb of a flashlight lent to him on New Year's Day. It was something to pretend to hold as a birthday present. Never returned because he was too anxious to call that person to hang out again. The memory corrected itself before Alter Ego's analysis.

 

“No. Too busy.

 

>  I was too busy.

They were too busy.

 

> There's too much to do.”

 

Curiosity fueled aem in some small way. Why Kibougamine?

_To absolve myself._

The memory of standing before disappointed parents appeared.

“You don't have to pay for me to go to there. I'll earn my way in...” _I can do it. Please believe in me._

“We set aside the fund years ago, Hinata. It's nothing to worry about. We expected this much.”

_You never believed I could get in on my own?_

“You can make up for this once you're there. Don't get so upset over something you brought on yourself.”

 _I_... _I really did try. I thought..._

“Don't worry, we'll help you make _something_ of yourself. Pick up some of the slack though. Don't just laze around like you did in middle school.”

“Just...do something.”

_I really wasn't, but..._

_No. That's right, isn't it._

_Why couldn't I have been born with something..._

_I'd give up anything...for that._

_But maybe if I go...that could be enough.  Maybe even without that, they'd be proud of me..._

_I could be proud of me._

The AI pushed forward, reaching out to 'that' thing, whatever it was, and found aemself...

Back in that strange mobius strip. Shock set in as slowly as it could for aem, which wasn't that slow at all, and ae thought ae'd been pushed out of the small remaining bit of Hajime Hinata, before finding that...this was the start of it.

Connected with the barest bit of memory and code, between two consciousnesses that seemed as though they were entirely different people, was talent.

An obsession with Kibougamine, and an obsession with talent...leading to a horrifying mobius strip like this. Ae couldn't understand if Hinata had done this to himself, but it didn't seem like such a thing was possible.

With that small string, Alter Ego finally withdrew to start aer avatar of the original fifteen year old Hinata.

Only to be interrupted by the slam of a door and a frantic yell.

“Alter Ego, are you done yet?”

Both detective and AI startled at seeing Naegi in the room, breathless and confused. It took a second for ae to process why, and even that second was too long.

“I'm sorry, I got caught up in piecing him together, and --”

Kirigiri had already sprung up. “We've arrived already?”

An hour before expected time, Naegi explained with a pale face. They had to start the program immediately. The humans in the room tried to avoid looking at the last remnant of despair, laying in a pod as though dead.

Alter Ego sprung up. “I can finish quickly! I promise! It will take time to hook up everyone else.” In spite of how low a chance there was, small cartoon stars still sprung from aer sprite's eyes in excitement.

Ae didn't keep any watch on aer friends as they collected the fourteen prepared members of despair and brought them into the Jabberwock Facility. Hajime Hinata was made up of messy hair a little too styled after Jin Kirigiri. Ae left his name ordered as it had been on his single high school application, hidden from parents' view. Alter Ego had seen that once before, and weren't about to shame aer master's memory here either. No surgery scars on this version of Hinata, a fuller face, and very different eyes.

The memories were harder, even with the chain that ae had finally found. A favorite and least favorite thing, on such a short time, could only be filled out in regards to the confectionery shops that were present in so many of his school memories. A memory of falling off the counter while trying to reach the top shelf of the fridge for some kusa mochi. Another memory of another Girl's Day with another disgusting sakura mochi in front of him.

Others were still completely inseperable from the present consciousness. Maybe with another day, thre could be time to pull apart the memory of guns from all the death and blood of SHSL Despair, but even seconds counted here. Firearms were completely cut out, along with a few too many other things, and ae hoped that Hinata would have enough to function in the program.

Naegi came back too soon, his face even paler now than it had been when he had come to deliver the news. He pecked at the keyboard imprecisely, apparently not capable of speech at this point.

 _Are you ready_?

“Completely!”

Ae didn't want to mention that ae had scrambled to click save the moment Naegi had walked in the room. He didn't need more stress than what was already on his back.

The avatars and Alter Ego aemself were transferred to a laptop and aer next moment of consciousness, ae found that ae were finally hooked up to the New World Program's main computer. From the security cameras around the dark room, ae could see aer other four friends still situating the first fourteen subjects. Ae took another small note to see the long haired Hinata brush a hand over the console, before being politely escorted to a pod by Naegi.

Ten days of hardwork, and the fifteen were rounded up around the room, with the sixteenth waiting in the program. Alter Ego uploaded the fruits of everyone's struggles, which all the conscious humans in the room looked upon in baited breath. Everything clicked green. To everyone but Alter Ego, that was good news. However, ae still had to make sure everything was right...

Most of them were fine in the program. Nidai's eyes still jolted with a strange electricity that was likely an oversight on aer part. Owari seemed to be constantly starving beyond what any human should have ever been, but she didn't seem to consider it strange. Pekoyama and Kuzuryuu were a large worry, but appeared in everything...fine, and without question. Even the imposter had come out well enough, not questioning that they had been given an identity. Ae hoped that they just thought it was research they had done on their own.

Hinata though...

He fainted within the first twenty minutes of the program. Naegi was the one to quietly ask if that was normal, and Alter Ego couldn't help but cheerily respond, “I'm sure he'll be fine!”

Despite that cheery response, ae still struggled to stitch together the frayed parts of Hinata's strangely broken existence even in the simulation. He kept imagining shards of memory, and ae tried to simulate that.

 _It's nothing Hinata! Don't worry!_ He wouldn't wake up if he couldn't regain confidence enough to open his eyes, energy enough to keep himself long enough to stabalize in the program. So, Alter Ego made a rare decision.

_Of course you have a talent! As long as you open your eyes, one day you'll remember it. But you have to survive until you reach that day..._

And quietly pushed the loosely threaded memory of the “Reserve Class” school ID out of Hinata's head.

The human known as Hajime Hinata needed people to look out for him.

“I...” A scratchy voice came out of the floored teenager, and the cameras in the simulation showed him finally sit up.

Naegi and Hagakure cheered in unison, Fukawa half fainted with relief, and Togami and Kirigiri smirked in victory at one another. Everyone sat and thanked Alter Ego, not knowing just what ae had done.

It wouldn't hurt him if an artificial intelligence was the first.

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly conceptualized this fic as one about Alter Ego saving Hinata's life. Hinata was effectively dead, and would never have never had a chance again if it weren't for Alter Ego. I know this is true for everyone, in a lot of ways, but Hinata the most of all. That meant a lot to me when I read SDR2, and I also wanted to write a fic with some snippets of Hinata's life, and this proved to be a great excuse!
> 
> To make it clear, Hinata is trans in this fic, and in case there was any confusion about the...skirt/uniform/name mention stuff, that's why.


End file.
